Here we go, then: my 40 favourite albums of 2012 thus far. A very personal list, I should say, so please don’t think it constitutes any kind of canonical Uncut pronouncement.
REM's Peter Buck has posted his first solo material online – scroll down to the bottom of the page and click to hear his track '10 Million BC'.
The song, which surfaced via Slicing Up Eyeballs, is set to appear on the guitarist's debut album, although a title or release date for the LP have yet to be revealed. In March of this year, Scott McCaughey – Buck's Minus 5 band mate and frequent REM collaborator – confirmed that he had been working on the record and hinted that it would be released on vinyl only.
Wayne Coyne has said that the band's new album could be the best Flaming Lips album that the band ever make.
The Oklahoman band are set to release their collaboration-heavy LP The Flaming Lips And Heavy Fwends on CD and digitally on June 25 but, in an interview with Spinner, the singer said the band were already looking ahead to their new studio record.
Radiohead's drum technician, Scott Johnson, has been named as the man who died after a stage collapsed before the band's concert in Toronto on Saturday (June 16).
A relative confirmed to the BBC that the 33-year-old from Doncaster had died when the roof of the stage fell on top of him.
A further three people are injured, with one reported to be in a serious condition, in the incident at Downsview Park. Scroll down the page and click to view footage, shot from a helicopter, of the aftermath.
The Rolling Stones will bow out from live performances with a headline slot at next year's Glastonbury festival, according to a tabloid report.
The band have never played the Worthy Farm festival but a rumour suggests that they will be heading there for their first and only time next summer, according to the Sunday Mirror.
Welcome back William Friedkin and Matthew McConaughey - both missing in action, it seems, for some years now - with the terribly funny Killer Joe. Typically, for the director of transgressive genre pieces like The Exorcist and Cruising, one of the first things we see here is Gina Gershon’s lower half, naked. “It’s a bit distracting, your bush in my face,” complains her step-son, Chris (Emile Hirsch).
Flaming Lips are to release their The Flaming Lips And Heady Fwends album on July 30.
The album was originally given a limited, vinyl-only release for Record Store Day on April 21 this year.
Recorded in collaboration with artists including Nick Cave, Yoko Ono and Bon Iver, the album will be released by the band's new label, Bella Union, on both CD and vinyl.
The track listing for The Flaming Lips And Heady Fwends is:
1. “2012 (You Must Be Upgraded) (w/ Ke$ha, Biz Markie & Hour Of The Time Majesty 12)
St Vincent and David Byrne have announced details of their joint album ‘Love This Giant’, which is set for release on September 11.
Recorded over two years, the pair wrote ten of the album’s twelve tracks together, with each artist submitting a track of their own. Speaking of the collaboration, St Vincent – real name Annie Clark, said: "There was no delineating what the roles were. It's a collaboration I'm truly proud of."
